Money Plus Sunset Home and Business

Money Plus Sunset Home and Business is designed to be a replacement for expired versions of Money Plus Home and Business.

Note: The Money Plus Sunset versions come with online self-help only. See Overview section for more info.

You can download the sunset sku for Home and Business from the Microsoft download site.

Money "sunset" sku

Microsoft Money products since Money 2007 have utilized a digital rights management system which required users to activate their product at or shortly after setup. Now that the Microsoft Money product line is nearing the end of its supported lifecycle, the activation services will also be ending. To enable users the ability to continue to use Microsoft Money manually, (without online quotes or online banking services), Microsoft is releasing "Money Plus Deluxe Sunset", and a "Money Plus Home and Business Sunset". The Sunset skus do not require activation, and come preconfigured with no online services, thus allowing users access to their Microsoft Money data files.

You can download the product from here.

Non-activation version of Microsoft Money

Later this year, Microsoft will release versions of Money Plus Deluxe and Money Plus Home and Business that will not require online activation. This version will allow you to keep your Money files and transactional history but will not allow access to online services or premium services.

No further details on this are yet available, but I'll post announcements here as they occur.

Reminder: 1 more week to purchase Microsoft Money

Please note that there is only 1 week left to purchase Microsoft Money through online outlets. It will be discontinued from sale on June 30, 2009.

If you have an activated copy of Microsoft Money Plus, you may wish to purchase a new key to continue with full functionality after the expiration date of your current version up to the end of life on 31 January 2011. Yopu can find out the expiry date by clicking on Help->About whilst within Money.

Purchase links can be found below

• Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe
• Microsoft Money Plus Premium
• Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business

These links are no longer valid

All quiet on the Money front

It's been a little quiet on the Money front recently. As there is no new product this year, Money Plus continues to be the one to purchase if you're looking for a replacement for an expired version of Money 2006 (expired on 1 September 2008) or Money 2007 (which will expire 2 years after first installation or 1 September 2009, whichever is earlier). Of course, if you don't use any online services, you should be able to continue with these versions.

There is still no news on other products for other countries – I personally expect there never to be any now.

Money Plus online services are due to expire after 2 years or by September 1, 2011 – if you bought Plus last year, then there is likely to be some news in the spring about upgrade paths. Microsoft could release a new version or may extend the time. They possibly could introduce a subscription model, but that remains to be seen.

I've not posted on this site for a month as my job situation is now very unclear, and I may be about to lose it (I don't work for Microsoft, so if you think I am in any way connected to the team, I'm not). However, this will give me new challenges (just finding a new one will be enough of a challenge – I'm after a .NET team lead position). I'll still post here as appropriate when I hear news on the Microsoft & MSN Money fronts though.

Glyn.

Problems with repeated requests to update Money Plus

Over the last week, since the Money Plus SP1 update was released through smartconnect, there have been a small group of people whose computers will not properly update themselves with this patch.

Microsoft have been looking into this issue, and some ideas have been floated through newsgroups on how to solve this.

I've put together a couple of articles about this, which might help you get around the problem should it be happening to you. Unfortunately they're not all that straightforward...

1. FAQ Article 547 - this is a collection of a number of suggested solutions
2. FAQ Article 549 - a specific fix for CD installations only

If you're experiencing the problem, hopefully something in one of those articles will help you.

Money Plus SP1 Released

Money Plus SP1 was released via smartconnect, on March 24, 2008. This update contains the following fixes:

• Resolves a conflict with the DEP setting in Windows Vista and in some versions of Windows XP. This conflict caused Money Plus to crash (FAQ Article 512).
• Money Plus Activation now accepts all characters if Windows is set to use Large Fonts (FAQ Article 533).
• Activation improvements for firewall and proxy configurations are included.
• Activation improvements for non-administrator configurations are included.
• Performance is improved when you work with Money Plus data files that contain many "unaccepted transactions."
• Other fixes to improve compatibility with Windows Vista are included.

Money Plus Essentials in Canada

The 'Essentials' version of Money is now available in Canada. This is the 'online-only' version which is quite basic.

Money Essentials is for new Money customers only as it will not be able to open other Money product files or Quicken Files, so it is of limited use to people using previous versions.

So unless you really want the essentials version (If you want to download your data and start afresh), I'd recommend going for a more featured version such as Premium or Deluxe.

If you want to get hold of Money Plus outside the US, see my previous posting. (that post doesn't include a link to Microsoft Money Essentials)

The microsoft site prices Essentials at approximately $19.99 Canadian Dollars

Obtaining Money Plus outside the US or Japan

I've been a little busy recently, and so my posting to the newsgroups, web site and this blog has been, well, a bit intermittent. I can't promise this will include in the short/medium term.

With the continuing lack of information on UK, Canadian, French and other versions of Microsoft Money, it's becoming increasingly more likely that these markets are no longer being targetted by Microsoft. We'll need to see over the next months whether that is again the case for a 2009 (Plus+ or whatever name they use) product.

In the meantime, some people are trying out the Plus product by downloading the trial. Unfortunately this presents a problem when they come to purchase the product from outside the US. Places such as amazon.com do not ship the software outside of the US.

To get around this restriction, you can use a digital download instead. The 'trick' is to use a 'fake' US address. Obviously you need to avoid the purchase of a CD media here.

You can obtain the various versions of Money through digital download through one of the following links:

• Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe
• Microsoft Money Plus Premium
• Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business

These links are no longer valid

Update: 5 February - you can't directly update a non-US money file (e.g. UK, France) directly into Money Plus (except possibly the Canadian one).

I've not gone through the process above, so would be happy to hear experiences.

Money Plus - Japan

Microsoft Money Plus Edition
(マイクロソフト マネー プラス エディション)
個人マネー管理ソフトの決定版
複数口座の一元管理、日々の収支管理、資産管理、ライフ プラン作成まで対応した、総合的な個人マネー管理ソフトです。
既存ユーザー向け 4,000 円キャッシュ バック クーポン同梱。


Microsoft Money に搭載されている「為替・株価の更新」や「明細自動ダウンロード」などのオンライン サービスは、Microsoft Money 各バージョンのサポート ライフサイクルもしくはあらかじめ定められた期間の範囲でご利用いただけます。オンライン サービスを継続してご利用いただくには、同様のオンライン サービスを提供する最新の Microsoft Money にアップグレードしていただく必要があります。この機会に、バージョン アップグレードをご検討ください。なお、オンライン サービスの期限後でも、Microsoft Money を使って、お客様の資産情報の表示や編集、資産や口座の情報や投資情報の手動での更新は可能です。

See http://www.microsoft.com/japan/money for more details

Problems with the Microsoft Money Plus trial version download

There currently is a small problem with the download of the trial versions of Microsoft Money Plus, if you are trying from the Microsoft Money page hosted by Microsoft.

Fortunately, the links referred to in my trials page are still working, even though they point to a Microsoft site!

Normal service should be resumed by Microsoft shortly :-)

Microsoft Money 2005 Online Services Expiry on 1 September 2007

On September 1st, most people using Microsoft Money 2005 Online services will have found that these expired. This is per the Online Services Policy that you would have accepted when you first used the product.

Microsoft® Money 2005 includes up to two (2) years of Internet-based Services. You will be able to use the Internet-based Services in Microsoft Money 2005 for a period of two (2) years from installation of the product or until September 1, 2007, whichever is earlier. After expiration, if you elect not to upgrade or are unable to upgrade to a version of Microsoft Money that continues to support Microsoft Money 2005 Internet-based Services, you will not be able to automatically update your accounts and investment values in Microsoft Money 2005. You will still be able to view and edit your financial data in Microsoft Money 2005 and to manually update your accounts and investment values. Microsoft may from time to time without notice, automatically download and install onto your computer updates for Microsoft Money, including updates necessary for you to continue to use the Internet-based Services.

Some of the features of Online services can be found at FAQ Article498

To work around this issue, you must upgrade to a later version (Microsoft Money Plus is the latest version).

Note: Microsoft Money UK products did not expire on this date. They will now expire in December 2009.

Ultrasoft Moneylink for Microsoft Money Plus Released

Ultrasoft Moneylink is a program provided for free by Ultrasoft, which allows you to access your Microsoft Money data in Microsoft Excel.

Ultrasoft have recently released a version of this software for use with Microsoft Money Plus. You can find it on the Ultrasoft MoneyLink Download page

As usual, this will also be referenced from my Money downloads page (http://moneymvps.org/downloads/moneylink/default.aspx)

New articles on moneymvps.org site

I had a major day of putting up new information on the main FAQ site yesterday, which included the following new articles:

• Bills Insight - Article 511
• Spending Insight - Article 510
• Known bug fixes in Microsoft Money Plus (2008) - Article 509
• Currencies in Microsoft Money Plus (2008) - Article 508
• Default Categories in the US 2008 (Money Plus) Versions - Article 507
• Special Offers for Microsoft Money Plus 2008 - Article 506
• Cash Flow Insight - Article 505
• Linking from transactions to external documents or images - Article 504
• Activation in Microsoft Money Plus 2008 - Article 502

It is anticipated that article 510 (known bug fixes) will be expanded as more are discovered.

Certain articles I always produce for each new version, such as the list of default categories and currencies.

Money Plus (2008) Insights

Now that the trial versions of Microsoft Money Plus have been released, more information on the product can be discovered.

Insights
One of the newest items is what could be considered the re-introduction of Money Express, but under the guise of 'Insights'.

Insights provide you with the ability to see information about bills, spending and cash flow from outside of the program. There are three insights in the program, and a brief summary can be see in the articles below

• Cash Flow Insight
• Spending Insight
• Bills Insight

Insights do not require you to have Money running, as the program uses your Money file directly. It lives in the taskbar on the Windows screen, highlighting you to alerts as required.

Options within these insights are limited. They are designed to provide pertinent data to allow you to go into the Money file if something needs to be done.

When some of the MVPs were in Redmond earlier in the year, we did see some of the prototype work here, and it is good to see that some of the things we saw made it into the program.